Words on Fire, by Jennifer A. Nielsen (Book Review)

“For who are we all, if not the product of who we love, what we know, and every wonderful word that we have read?”

Andra is a thirteen year old who lives on her family’s farm in Lithuania during the dangerous occupation of Russian Cossack soldiers. The Cossacks insist that everyone must become Russian—they have banned Lithuanian books, religion, and even the language. Audra knows her parents are involved in something secret and perilous to help stop them. 

She had always avoided the soldiers, and stayed out of trouble…until the Cossacks arrive abruptly at their door, and Audra's parents insist that she flee, taking with her an important package and instructions as to where to deliver it. But escape means abandoning her parents to a terrible fate…

As Audra embarks on a journey to deliver the package, she faces terrible risks, and soon she becomes caught up in a what her parents were apart of. A growing resistance movement of book smugglers. Will joining the illegal system of smuggles help save her parents, and so many other Lithuanians?

“You’re rather brilliant, you know.”

Words on Fire was a very compelling story, taking place in pre-World War I Lithuania. It was a very eye opening and interesting book!

I read another book by Jennifer A. Neilsen called Resistance, that I really enjoyed, and this one was very good as well. That being said, something that might have made me like it more is if there was more clearness with the timeline. I had to do a lot of research on the Cossacks and what time period it was that Lithuania was invaded to understand more of this book. It was common to use the word "Cossacks" as a kind of synonym to "Russians" and "Russian soldiers" of the time. Which was pre-WW1. They didn’t make that very clear in the actually book.

I did really enjoy the plot twists in this book quite a bit. Jennifer Nielsen’s writing style, like I said in my Resistance review, almost reminds me of Suzanne Collins with The Hunger Games. It might be very surprising I say this because of the completely different genres, and yes, there’s not a lot to do with the actually stories being similar, but their writing styles are so so similar, including the characters and their development, which I really love. 

I didn’t know much about what book smugglers—and smugglers in general—had to go through to simple make deliveries, cross borders, and hid the things they were smuggling. The way Jennifer Nielsen was able to make that into an intriguing, heartwarming, suspenseful book was really beautiful.

There wasn’t anything inappropriate, super romantic, or very gory, so I’d recommend this book for 12+ and would rate it a 8 out of 10!

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